It's Raining Men (7 page)

As she was thinking this, a tinkle on her phone heralded a text from him.

Oh God, that wasn’t helping. He didn’t know what he was in for. She wished it were one o’clock now and she was back in the office with the lunch behind
her.

The morning at work dragged, as she knew it would. The clock hands crawled around to lunchtime. Ludwig was waiting for her in the restaurant with two glasses of champagne already ordered and on
the table. He stood up and kissed her, not noticing that she turned her head slightly so his mouth landed more on her cheek than on her lips. He handed her a glass of champagne, lifted his own and
chinked it against hers.

‘I’ve got some pictures of the apartment,’ said Lud, digging in his jacket pocket. He straightened out the sheets of paper and handed them over to Clare. ‘I thought they
might tempt you, even though I promised myself that I wouldn’t pressurize you,’ and he winked.

‘Wow,’ she said, meaning it. Spacious and cream-coloured, big bouncy sofas and an open-plan arrangement with, since it was a corner apartment, two full walls of windows letting in
the light. There was a view of the sun-sparkled Dubai sea in the near distance. The sight of those blue waters nearly had her throwing away her life as she knew it and promising to go with Lud.
Clare loved the sea; she loved the smell of it, the feel of the cold salty water against her skin, the sensation of slipping underneath it and disappearing into another world. Dubai and that sea
could be her home for two years. Everything she loved – space, sun, sea . . . Was she mad turning it down?

‘That’s the apartment right there to the le—’

Then Lud’s phone rang again and his attention shifted away from her.

Oh Lud, it looks gorgeous, it really does and half of me wants to go with you so badly, but the other half knows I can’t. I can’t miss this opportunity to be the angel at the top of
the family tree for once. I can’t be second best any more. To you or anyone.

‘I shall be back home on the day you return from the holiday with your friends,’ he said. ‘Let’s toast that the time until then will fly.’ He drank, she
didn’t. Clare replaced her glass on the table.

‘Lud, I think we should split up.’

His lips paused on the glass.

‘We can’t have a long-distance relationship; we’d just be delaying the inevitable. We wouldn’t survive it.’

‘Other people manage,’ said Ludwig, putting his glass down. He looked calm, but she had totally knocked him off balance, she knew.

‘I’ve been thinking . . . your change of job happening at the same time as my promotion is fate, Lud,’ said Clare, pushing down on those feelings of protest which were trying
to rise within her. ‘You need someone who will support you and give you a family, someone to work for and look after. I’m not that woman.’

‘Are you sure, Clare? Can you put your hand on your heart and say that you are taking this position because
you
want it?’ His words were gentle, almost a whisper, and yet
they plunged into her chest and straight through the centre of her heart.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I can say that. I am sure.’

‘We can make this work,
Liebling
.’

Clare took a deep breath.

‘I don’t want to.’

She watched him gulp hard.

‘I see.’

‘I love you but I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t give my job everything I had. I have to. And, let’s face it, your work is your priority too.’

‘You’re my priority,’ he said firmly.

‘No, I’m not,’ replied Clare. ‘I can’t remember the last time we had a conversation for longer than five minutes without your phone coming between us.’ Lud
opened up his mouth to answer and Clare held up her hand to stop him. ‘You don’t have to apologize or explain, Lud. I know how it is. This is your golden moment and you must take it and
this is my golden moment and I must take it. You can go to Dubai this evening as a free man. And concentrate on your job without the distraction of me.’

‘There is more to my life than work, Clare,’ he said, shock evident in his voice that she could think otherwise.

‘Is there?’ she replied. ‘I don’t feel there is any more.’ She didn’t say that she felt ever-so-slightly bored too. She didn’t say that she heard girls
in the office talking about saucy encounters and wishing she had some to report of her own. She could let him go kindly without grinding his face into the dirt.

‘It’s okay,’ he said, reaching over and closing his warm hand over hers. ‘I understand. It’s you who needs to focus on your job without the distraction of
me.’

Clare sighed guiltily. This was horrible. She sounded like a right hard cow.

The waiter arrived at their side to take their order.

‘Do you want to eat?’ asked Lud. Clare’s lowered head moved slowly from side to side.

‘Just the champagne,’ Lud told the waiter. ‘If you could bring me the bill, thank you.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Clare.

‘Don’t be,’ replied Lud. ‘You’ve worked hard. You deserve your moment in the spotlight. I know how important it is to you.’

And he did. Over the years Lud had witnessed the many achievements of Toby and Alice Salter eclipsing everything that Clare did. How could he deny her the fifteen minutes of family fame?

The waiter brought over the bill. Lud gave it a cursory glance and then replaced it on the plate with some notes from his wallet.

‘I hope you’re really happy in Dubai,’ said Clare, fighting back the emotion that had lodged like a hard lump in her gullet. ‘I hope you find what you’re looking
for.’

‘I had found it,’ he said. ‘Can I get you a taxi back to work?’

‘No, I’ll sit here for a bit and then take the Tube.’

Lud leaned over her and kissed her head, his hand curving tenderly around her arm.

‘Goodbye,’ he said. ‘It’s been fun.’

‘I hope we can still stay friends,’ said Clare, almost desperately, not wanting to let go now that she had separated them, but feeling that she had pushed him too far away to reach
for again.

He nodded gallantly, like an old-fashioned soldier, then she watched his broad back cut through the crowd of café customers until it had disappeared totally from sight. As she followed
him with her eyes, she did not realize that in his pocket lay the Tiffany engagement ring which he was going to present to her over lunch.

Finished, gone, just like that. All those years of togetherness ended with just a few words. Now she was free to concentrate on being the family superstar for the first time in her life. The
Salter runt who was clever but never managed the genius heights of her smart-arse siblings had finally managed to outshine their achievements. And Ludwig could go and conquer the world and find
himself a woman that he would ignore his phone for. The thought that he might sent the tears tumbling down her cheeks and onto the pristine white tablecloth.

May’s meeting in Clapham at nine that morning was with a man trying to set up a wholefood restaurant. She arrived at half-past eight to find Mr Terry waiting for her, an
enthusiastic smile plastered all over his face. She reckoned he would be onto a winner too. He was so keen to get started, the property was ideal, the plans he had to renovate it were simple, cheap
but effective ones, and his menu looked fantastic. She envied his passion for his work and his self-employed status, answering to no one but himself. May loved her job; she just hated all the
rubbish that came with it: namely reporting to a man who didn’t seem to have a clue what he was doing. He had all the management skills of a dead squirrel. Thank God he escaped to a golf
course as often as he did and left everyone to get on with it.

May had allowed the full morning for the meeting but was done and dusted by just after half-past ten. She didn’t want to get back to the office too early so took herself off to a
café near the park. The waitress brought over a frothy cappuccino and a millionaire’s shortbread which, disappointingly, had a very unbuttery base and not enough chocolate topping. As
she was staring out of the window, May’s eyes zoomed in on the building opposite, a grand old house almost hidden behind a high brick wall and tall trees. There was a sign at the side of the
gate which she could just make out: The Pines. Her heart started to thump faster. Was it
The
Pines, the one in which Susan Hammerton resided? It had to be. Michael had said it was in the
Clapham area and surely there couldn’t be two establishments around here with the same name.

She drank the last of her coffee and wondered if this was a sign that she should do what she had intended to do for ages now: volunteer some money towards Susan’s care. There must be
luxuries that weren’t on the basic bill that would make her life easier. She had broached the subject with Michael but he waved it away, too proud to accept. He didn’t need to know,
though – she was sure that she and The Pines could have a secret arrangement.

May crossed the road and walked down the path that led to the front door of the magnificent Georgian building with a large and established front garden. It must be costing poor Michael a
fortune, thought May.

The reception area had large, square, black and white floor tiles and as May walked over them towards the main desk, she felt as if she were a piece on a chessboard.

‘Morning, my love. Can I help you?’ asked a white-uniformed woman manning the desk. She had a thick and friendly West Country accent and a welcoming smile.

May opened her mouth but didn’t really know how to start. So she plunged in.

‘Hello, I wonder if I could speak to someone about one of your residents.’

‘Well, would you give me a few more details, please?’

‘I’d like to see if there is anything I could contribute to make her stay here a little easier?’

‘I’ll get the matron for you,’ said the receptionist. ‘Would you take a seat over there for a few minutes? There’s a coffee machine if you’d like a
drink.’

‘Thank you.’ May took a seat and waited, though she didn’t use the machine as she was all coffee-ed out. Anyway, she wouldn’t have had enough time as the woman returned
almost immediately with someone who was just like a matron from a
Carry On
film – flat shoes, wide girth, short curly hair under a white starched cap, and oozing efficiency.

‘Hello, there,’ she boomed. ‘I’m Marian Plaistow, Matron of The Pines. Would you like to come into my office?’

‘Certainly.’ May followed her through the door to the left of reception and took a seat at the other side of Matron’s neat and tidy desk in her large, square and very sunlit
office.

Matron settled her bulk into her big leather chair, threaded her fingers together and asked, ‘So how can we help you?’

‘I hope I’ve got the right place,’ began May. ‘It’s about Susan Hammerton.’

‘Ah, yes. Susan. Are you a relative?’

No, I’m shagging her husband.

May settled for: ‘A friend of the family. I understand that she is unlikely to improve.’

Matron gave a slight nod, clearly used to not divulging any confidential information.

‘I wondered if there was anything she might need that isn’t standard issue. Any medicines or treatments that might make things easier for her, luxuries, anything at all?’

Matron shook her head slowly from side to side.

‘Not really,’ she said. ‘I can’t think of anything we could do that we aren’t already doing. She is a very old lady. We can only make her comfortable.’

May shrugged her shoulders. ‘Ah, I just thought I’d ask. No worr—’

Then her brain caught up with her ears. Crikey – if thirty-five was very old, what the heck was eighty?

‘Very old? You said “very old”.’

‘That’s right.’

‘She’s thirty-five.’

Matron looked confused. ‘I think we might not be talking about the same . . .’

‘Susan Hammerton?’ Surely there couldn’t be two Susan Hammertons living in two The Pines in the area? May felt a tightness in her throat as if cold bony fingers were closing
around it. She lifted up her handbag from the floor and foraged inside it for the passport-sized picture of Michael that she kept in her purse. When she found it, she handed it over the desk for
Matron to take from her.

‘This is her husband. He’s thirty-four.’

Matron looked at the photograph, back at May and then back at the photo.

‘I’m sorry, but this isn’t Mrs Hammerton’s husband. She’s a widow in her nineties.’

The grip squeezed tighter. May felt her head grow light with confusion as thoughts zapped madly around it, trying to work out what was going on.

‘This man comes here to visit her,’ said May. ‘Michael Hammerton.’

‘Ye-es, that’s him,’ said Matron. ‘But he . . .’ She answered slowly and carefully. ‘He’s a relative of Mrs Hammerton. Not her husband,
though.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Matron handed back the photograph. She had an inkling of what might be happening in front of her eyes – she was a woman, after all. She leaned over the desk and said in a low voice,
‘I shouldn’t be saying this, but that man is Mrs Hammerton’s great-nephew Michael. He doesn’t visit that often. But when he does,’ she coughed, embarrassed, ‘I
believe he usually comes with someone. A blonde.’

‘A woman?’ asked May, the grip so tight now that she could barely get out her words. It was a ridiculous question. Of course it had to be a blonde woman.

Matron nodded.

‘His own age? Thereabouts?’

Again a nod.

‘Could it be his sister? He has a sister?’ May tried not to sound as hysterical as she felt.

Matron shook her head this time. ‘I don’t think the woman is his sister.’

May wanted to ask why. What were they doing to make you think it wasn’t his sister? What have you seen? Her imagination was going bonkers. Were they snogging, holding hands, bonking over
the reception desk?

Matron’s face was creased sympathetically. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I can help you.’

May sniffed and wiped at the escaping tears with the edge of her index fingers. ‘No, don’t worry. It’s not your fault. Thank you.’